Voice Coaches Blog

Voice Overs Of The World: It’s a Potato Head World, We’re Just Living In It

Posted 6:26 pm by KikiVassilakis

Apparently, it’s the 60th anniversary of one of the world’s most famous toys, Mr. Potato Head. Not only that, but according to Hasbro, Mr. Potato Head was also the first toy ever to be marketed in a television commercial. I checked out said commercial, and — what do you know? — it’s almost completely driven by a voice over!

There are a couple of notable things about this ad. Sure, it’s fascinating to see how different advertisements looked like back in the 1950s (not to mention how different the very first Mr. Potato Head toy was!) But I also thought it was interesting that it’s driven by a voice over that’s not the deep, male announcer voice that was so prevalent back then. Clearly, the ad agency behind this commercial was ahead of their time, using both a child’s voice and a character voice in the spot, both of which were largely unheard of in the early 1950s in advertising.

The more times change, the more they stay the same, eh? Oh, and Happy 60th Anniversary Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head!